Summer's almost here and we all know what that means: Long, warm sunny days spent hiding in the basement curled up in a fetal position. You may chuckle, my semi-health conscious reader and please do. For the moment, medical science still endorses laughter as good for you. That is, until a researcher chokes on his morning bagel while guffawing at his colleague's latest joke about the two microbes, the rabbi and the pole dancer. Then, it'll all be Dr. Oz pushing "Be Dour and Sour and Live Forever!" next on "Oprah!"
Anyway, my personal experience and a few minutes on Google have convinced me that the scenario I first outlined is the safest way to survive the many perils and pitfalls of summer. The season was once the time to venture forth into what was once known as the Great Outdoors, a venue now more commonly referred to Certain Death Lurking.
The Big Daddy of summertime killers, obviously, is the sun. For years, "they" (and they know who "they" are) have beaten into our beach-fried hides that sun exposure causes cancer and we should avoid it, especially when the ultraviolet deathrays are strongest between 7:28 a.m. to 6:57 p.m. If we had to be outside, they advised, lather in sunscreen.
Of course, they never mention that many common sunscreens are filled with what some believe are potentially deadly chemicals. In addition, sunscreen is an excellent lubricant that vastly reduces belly to Slip 'n Slide friction causing in recent years an unprecedented number of deaths by human projectile in backyards worldwide.
The alternative to sunscreen, of course, is wearing an oversize floppy hat, sunglasses and a full suit of plate mail. This works quite well, but in extreme heat it can lead to dehydration, exhaustion and some wicked chaffing down under. Nonetheless, it keeps the bugs away.
Bugs (insecticus ickyus) are frickin' everywhere outside. Scorpions, spiders and hedge fund managers -- oh, my! However, it's often the smallest ones that are the most deadly.
First, you got your mosquitoes. In the old days, they spread malaria, yellow fever and encephalitis, which sounds similar to another disease that makes a man's underlings swell to the size of small dogs but it's actually a fancy way of saying "disease that swells your brain" … which, for some of us guys, is one in the same.
In response, some very clever chemists developed a pesticide called DDT and doused everything in sight with it. This killed all the mosquitoes, which made DDT very bored just hanging around in our ground water with nothing to do, so it started killing songbirds and cute fluffy animals instead.
This surprising development caused them (note "they" and "them" are bowling buddies, so watch out) to stop using DDT. The mosquitoes came back -- pretty peeved -- and brought with them something called West Nile Virus.
West Nile Virus is akin to an Egyptian version of Montezuma's Revenge except it skips the digestive tract to just rip apart the rest of your innards. However, depending on your current health, it may be less harmful than Lyme disease, which is carried by deer ticks that actually live on mice not deer, which makes one wonder why they aren't called "mouse ticks." I suspect Disney.
Lyme disease can give you some serious joint pain, making it impossible to actually squeeze a lime into your malaria-preventing gin and tonic (grain of truth alert -- you can look it up), thus causing you to be what is known in medicine as "screwed six ways to Sunday."
But you know what might cure all these ailments? Vitamin D, which has everyone all abuzz and not just because of the rampant mosquitoes swarming their porch lights. All sorts of recent studies suggest (but never prove) an association (but never a direct link) between having a deficiency of vitamin D and pretty much any nasty condition you can think of: Alzheimer's disease, bacterial vaginosis, 73 flavors of cancer, bad cases of the Mondays, etc.
Whoo-hoo! So let's get some extra vitamin D!
Since vitamin D does not occur naturally in most foods, the best, most natural and organic source of it is … the sun.
Well, back to the basement until October.
Stamford native Kevin McKeever, a married father of two, is a freelance writer and editor. He also writes the humor blog, Always Home and Uncool, and is a contributor to DadCentric.com. He spent 10 years as a reporter and editor for local newspapers, another nine creating and running the employee communications program for a Fortune 200 company, and then he wised up.
His humorous view of health and wellness, "Rubbing It In," will be featured regularly in future issues of Aetherial Living.
If you enjoy this article, or would like to know more about Kevin, please drop him a comment at kevin@aetheriaspa.com
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